I'm starting to think that sometimes, maybe the best answers are the simplest ones, that you came up with right away before then overcomplicating things with forced "cool" or "rare" answers. Answers that make the most sense because they're so obvious as to be staring you right in the face, and not answers that you had to scrounge up from circumstantial subconscious fragments. Red-tailed hawk was the second theriotype I ever confirmed, and the first bird one. I've always been a buteo, and I knew that, but I went with Harris's hawk instead for so long. I guess it was because I knew red-tail was the "basic" bird kintype and thought people would think not that I was faking, but that I didn't actually do any research or have expertise on birds and went with red-tail because it was the only one I knew, which is almost a worse libel to me. Or because I felt like red-tail was too obvious, too simple, too easy, maybe too influenced by media and what's always been more popular, especially around the time when I first confirmed it? Early on in my blog I had even written a whole post, which blew up, about the importance of looking into other predatory birds before one confirms red-tailed hawk, so the idea of then confirming it myself felt almost fraudulent, like I was a con artist.
Ever since accepting I'm also a red-tail, while I thought I was both, I just can't see myself as a Harris's hawk. It doesn't come naturally, it feels forced. I had this same problem summer of last year after I had been trying to explain why I felt like a hawk and decided on Harris's hawk, but "demoted" it to just a familiar cameo shift because it just didn't feel like I was being genuine. It felt like a mask. I had thought the problem was that I was too many different species, I had too many theriotypes, some of them were just
wanting to be something, and I needed to Occam's razor down what was real and what was wishful thinking, and Harris's hawk was the first to go. But since then, I have confirmed additional theriotypes -- sea slater, mosasaur, as examples -- and harmoniously, with mental equilibrium. The problem was the species, and this past August when I really truly accepted being a polytherian instead of trying to reduce reuse recycle with my theriotypes constantly, which meant I accepted being a red-tail too (after so long too! Almost seven years), I was suddenly so much more focused on being a red-tail than I ever was with being a Harris's hawk. I just didn't feel like Harris's was important. It was like having a biology textbook that I loved reading, but then one day I got a shiny newer, updated version, and pretending like the old version was still my favorite had no point, because it was outdated and wasn't accurate.
With all that being said, I think I have narrowed down my red-tailed species, which frankly feels more significant to me than being a Harris's hawk at all did. I see myself most in a paler color morph, but not completely white like a leucistic. I am drawn to both central northern American habitats like those in Alberta or Wyoming, and south western American desert habitats like places in Arizona and New Mexico. One of the reasons for clinging to Harris's hawk was that I felt so strongly about being a desert hawk, but felt like I must be a red-tail that lived in greener areas. I did not consider the possibility of a migratory subspecies that winters in the Sonoran.
May I introduce the Krider's hawk,
Buteo jamaicensis kriderii, my specific subspecies.
I feel so at peace with this. I'm not a Harris's hawk, and more importantly, what makes this not like the last few times I de-confirmed Harris's hawk, I know what I
am. This will be the last time I use the tag for Harris's hawk. (Not sure if I'm going to just use the red-tailed hawk tag or keep the hawk tag.) I can send this piece of my personal history off to sea, finally satisfied with its closure.
